Salesforce scoops up Quip for $582 million

Salesforce.com has dusted off a stack of stock to continue its recent buying spree and is acquiring Quip, a maker of cloud-based word processing software, in a deal worth at least $582 million.

Salesforce announced the Quip acquisition in a regulatory filing dated July 30. According to Salesforce, the all-stock deal has an “aggregate value” of $582 million, and it will issue stock worth between $73.81 and $90.22 a share to acquire all the shares of privately held Quip.

San Francisco-based Quip makes software that competes with other word-processing programs from Microsoft (Word) and Google (Docs), and lets users share and write documents in the cloud. Quip was founded and is led by Bret Taylor and Kevin Gibbs. Taylor is a former chief technology officer at Facebook, and joined Twitter’s board of directors in early July.

In a blog post attributed to Taylor and Gibbs, the Quip founders said that by joining Salesforce, “we will be able to expand our service more quickly and reach millions of people all over the world — which has been our mission since day one.”

While Salesforce said the deal is worth $582 million, it doesn’t include the piece of Quip owned by Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce’s investment group. There are also reports saying the deal may actually be worth as much as $750 million due to cash components involving Quip and its shareholders.

The Quip acquisition comes as Salesforce is making an effort to expand its cloud-based productivity offerings. In June, Salesforce said it would pay $2.8 billion to acquire Demandware, a maker of e-commerce and online store management software, and in May, Salesforce paid an undisclosed amount for Implisit Insights, an Israel-based data-intelligence startup.

Salesforce shares slipped by 1.4 percent, to $79.92, after the Quip acquisition became public.

Salesforce has again decided to splash the cash in order to boost its portfolio this time with the acquisition of productivity software maker Quip.The deal, which will be for $582 million in stock, will add to Salesforce’s portfolio a number of programs for creating documents and spreadsheets.